In a small Texas town, Drummond’s bar began construction on a new building to increase their business. The local Baptist church started a campaign to block the bar from opening with petitions and prayers. Work progressed right up till the week before opening when lightning struck the bar and it burned to the ground.
The church folks were rather smug in their outlook after that, until the bar owner sued the church on the grounds that the church was ultimately responsible for the demise of his building, either through direct or indirect actions or means. The church vehemently denied all responsibility or any connection to the building’s demise in its reply to the court.
As the case made its way into court, the judge looked over the paperwork. At the hearing he commented, "I don’t know how I’m going to decide this, but as it appears from the paperwork, we have a bar owner who believes in the power of prayer, and an entire church congregation that does not."
This morning, as we continue our series on becoming disciples who care for our community, we’re going to focus on the power of prayer and how God often calls those who are praying to participate in the answer to their prayers.
Last week, we began to see how that we as a body are already caring for our community through the people that God has placed in this body. And as we began to look at some Biblical principles to guide us in that process, we saw that Jesus described His followers as being like leaven, salt and light. And we discovered that all three of those pictures reveal that we are to permeate our culture without having the culture change us.
This morning, we’re going to move on to the second Biblical principle that should impact how we care for the community – the principle of participation. Our primary passage this morning comes from Luke 10. Let’s read it out loud together:
After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. He told them, "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves.
Luke 10:1-3 (NIV)
Let me give you a brief background and then we’ll look at some principles that we can draw from this passage.
It is now about six months before Jesus will go to the cross. His ministry has moved from the area of Galilee south and east to Perea, the area east of the Jordan River, as well as Judea. As we’ll see in a moment, Jesus had previously selected twelve apostles to go ahead of Him and prepare the way for His ministry. But as the task became more urgent with His impending death on the cross, Jesus sends out another seventy-two followers to go and prepare the way for his final six months of ministry.
There are three important principles that we can draw from this passage that will provide Biblical guidance as we participate in the disciple making-process by caring for our community.
1. We need to view the harvest from God’s perspective
If these words of Jesus sound familiar, they should because He uttered the same exact words before he called the twelve apostles. That encounter is recorded for us at the end of Matthew 9 and the beginning of Matthew 10:
When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field." He called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out evil spirits and to heal every disease and sickness.
Matthew 9:36-10:1 (NIV)
I think one of the reasons that we don’t understand the importance of making disciples is that we don’t see the harvest like God does. We tend to look at these passages where Jesus speaks about the harvest and think about all the souls that are out their waiting to hear the gospel so that they can be harvested into God’s kingdom. But, at best, that’s only part of the imagery.
We don’t have time to explore this fully this morning, but both the Old and New Testaments use the picture of a harvest to describe the final judgment of those who have chosen not to commit their lives to Jesus. Let’s look at just two examples:
’Let the nations be roused; let them advance into the Valley of Jehoshaphat, for there I will sit to judge all the nations on every side. Swing the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. Come, trample the grapes, for the winepress is full and the vats overflow - so great is their wickedness!’
Joel 3:12, 13 (NIV)
Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’
Matthew 13:30 (NIV)
So the point Jesus is making here is that there are a multitude of unredeemed people who have been deceived and left spiritually destitute who are headed toward a harvest of judgment. Once we see the harvest from God’s perspective and understand just how serious it is, that should radically transform our mindset about the need to make disciples. Let’s briefly look at just two aspects:
• The motivation for making disciples is compassion
This is especially clear from the account in Matthew. When Jesus saw the crowds of people who were lost like sheep without a shepherd, he had compassion on them. He understood that the road to salvation is narrow and that the road toward the harvest of judgment is wide and he knew that many who heard His voice would choose that wide road rather than committing their lives to Him. And Jesus was moved by His compassion toward those people.
As followers of Jesus, we tend to be involved in making disciples for all kinds of reasons, perhaps most commonly out of a sense of duty. But ultimately, we need to be involved in making disciples out of a deep sense of compassion for all of the people we come into contact with on a daily basis who are on that wide road that leads to judgment.
• Our task is urgent
I don’t know much about farming, but I do know that when the crop is ready to be harvested, there is only a small window of opportunity to bring in the crop. In Jesus day, most of the farmers worked for themselves. So when it was time for the harvest, they would send their servants out into the field to begin the harvest. And if he could, the farmer’s goal was to harvest his own crop without having to hire outside help. But if the harvest was plentiful, the farmer would have to go out and hire more harvesters make sure he could bring in the crop before it rotted in the field. There was always a sense of urgency to the harvest.
Jesus is coming back to this earth again some day and when He returns, it will not only be to take His followers home to be with Him for eternity, it will also be to judge those who have not accepted Him as Lord and Savior. And since none of us know when that will be, there need to be a sense of urgency to making disciples. Once Jesus returns, it will be too late.
2. Ministry is a team effort
• God chooses to involve every believer in His work
Even though Jesus was fully God, His common practice was always to involve others in His ministry. We’ve already seen two clear examples of how Jesus selected a group of His followers and sent them out to prepare the people for His ministry. Unfortunately, there seems to be this mistaken idea in the church that only certain people are called to be partners with God in His ministry here on earth. Hopefully our journey through Ephesians has completely dispelled that myth, particularly this passage from Chapter 4:
It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up…
Ephesians 4:11, 12 (NIV)
Although God has given the church certain gifted leaders, their role is not to do all the ministry, but rather to equip each and every member of the body to do “works of service”. In another one of his letters, Paul reinforces the concept that every believer is to be a co-worker with God:
For we are God’s fellow workers…
1 Corinthians 3:9 (NIV)
Every believer is to be a worker in God’s harvest field. We are all given gifts, abilities, talents and resources that we are to use wherever God has placed us for the purpose of making disciples. We are all part of God’s team when it comes to caring for our community. But there is also another aspect of the idea that ministry is a team effort:
• Making disciples requires the entire body of Christ
Again, this principle certainly shouldn’t be a surprise after our journey through Ephesians. But Jesus clearly demonstrated this principle in His own ministry. Here in Luke, we see that Jesus didn’t send out his followers by themselves, but rather in pairs. If you go back to the gospel of Mark, you’ll find that Jesus did exactly the same thing earlier when He sent His twelve apostles out on a similar mission earlier in His ministry.
Our first reaction might be that Jesus was actually reducing the extent of the ministry of His followers by sending them out in pairs rather than individually. But there are actually two solid Biblical reasons for Jesus to take this approach. We find the first principle in this Old Testament passage:
One witness is not enough to convict a man accused of any crime or offense he may have committed. A matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.
Deuteronomy 19:15 (NIV)
The Old Testament Law required that there be at least two witnesses for testimony to be considered valid. So by sending out His followers in pairs to a primarily Jewish audience, Jesus was ensuring the effectiveness of their testimony.
That principle still holds true today. When other members of the body participate with us in our ministries, it makes our testimony about Jesus much more effective and trustworthy.
The second principle comes from a familiar passage in Ecclesiastes:
Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up! Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.
Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 (NIV)
Let’s face it, caring for our community is hard work and it’s often quite discouraging. In fact, if you go back to the end of Luke chapter 9, you’ll find that Jesus had just spent a lot of time warning His followers about how difficult it often is to be a follower of Jesus. So He sent His followers out in pairs so that they could encourage each other when the process of making disciples didn’t go smoothly.
Since we’re going to focus on this aspect of caring for our community in more detail next week, I won’t spend much time on this principle today, but I think it’s pretty obvious why Jesus doesn’t expect us to minister to others on our own.
These first two principles set the stage for the final principle that we’ll look at this morning, and this is where I really want us to place our focus this morning.
3. When we pray, God often calls us to participate in the answer
In order to see this principle clearly, we need to understand the structure of our passage from Luke. Verse 1 is merely an overview of the details of Jesus’ actions that are recorded beginning in verse 2:
After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go.
Beginning in verse 2, Luke now gives us the details of how Jesus appointed the seventy-two and sent them out to minister. In verses 2-16, Luke records the words that Jesus spoke to these seventy-two followers before He sent them on their mission. Then, beginning in verse 17, we find the report that the seventy-two gave upon their return from their mission and Jesus’ response to them.
So let’s focus on Jesus’ actual words to the seventy-two as he prepared to send them on their mission:
He told them, "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves.
Most of us are pretty familiar with verse 2 and perhaps we even pray that prayer on a regular basis. As we’ve seen, that prayer was important enough that Jesus commanded his followers to pray it on two different occasions. I’m reminded of the words of A.J. Gordon who said, “You can do more than pray after you have prayed, but you cannot do more than pray until you have prayed.”
One of the reasons that Dana and I are going to take some time over the next three weeks to share with you how members of this body are already involved in caring for our community is so that you can pray intelligently and effectively for them as they minister.
But there is a really interesting dynamic at play in this passage. As soon as Jesus tells His followers to pray for workers to send out into the harvest field, He immediately commands them to be the ones to go out into the field and start working.
The word “go” in verse 3 is a present tense command. So we could accurately translate it “go and keep on going”. There is a sense of urgency and immediacy to His command that is certainly consistent with the end of Chapter 9 of Luke where Jesus told one man to “let the dead bury the dead” and condemned another man who first wanted to say good-by to his family before He could follow Jesus.
You can’t pray for workers very long before the Lord taps you on the shoulder and asks “What about you? I want you to work in My harvest.” In other words, when we pray that the Lord of the harvest would send out workers, we often become the answer to our own prayer.
Earlier in Luke 9, we find Jesus putting that same principle into effect with His apostles:
Late in the afternoon the Twelve came to him and said, "Send the crowd away so they can go to the surrounding villages and countryside and find food and lodging, because we are in a remote place here." He replied, "You give them something to eat."
Luke 9:12, 13 (NIV)
The Twelve come to Jesus with a need, but Jesus turns it around and in effect He says to them, “I’m glad that you came and brought this need to my attention, but now you go and do something about it.” Most of us are probably familiar with this account and we know that Jesus had to intervene and multiply the bread and the fish, but the disciples still had to participate in meeting the needs by organizing the people, passing out the food and then collecting the leftovers.
We certainly need to pray for others in this body as they care for the needs of the community. But when we pray for them, it seems pretty clear that we also need to be prepared to be at least part of the answer to that prayer by participating in the ministry of others.
Dana is going to come now and share with you how some of the members of this body are already caring for our community. I’ve left the whole back of your sermon outline blank so that you’ll have some room to take some notes. As God lays it on your heart, you may feel led to pray for the ministries of others in this body. But as you do that, you need to realize that God may also call on you to be part of the answer to that prayer.
